


these leftover feelings of you

by maybesandsomedays, ohfiitz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Established Trip/Simmons, F/M, but not for long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-17 08:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2302619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybesandsomedays/pseuds/maybesandsomedays, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfiitz/pseuds/ohfiitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He feels a mixture of shock and panic and confusion, and for a split second, Fitz allows himself to admit things he has since learned to ignore. Specifically, that he might be, probably, definitely still in love with Jemma Simmons.</p><p>Except now she not only hates him, she's dating—and might soon be engaged to—his best friend."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we have never grown a day...

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was largely inspired by [this post](http://blake-wyatt.tumblr.com/post/96913430354/so-i-have-to-come-to-the-conclusion-that-some-nice) on Tumblr, but we played around with the idea a little bit and added some details.

“Fiiiiiiiiitz!”

Fitz slams his tools on the lab table, perhaps a little too forcefully, as he turns to look at the annoying sound calling his name. He knows that voice by now and can even see the teasing grin that probably accompanies it.

“What the hell do you want now, Skye?”

“Your friend Trip just got back from a mission and wants you to meet this amazing girl he started dating.”

He blinks at her, wondering for a second what exactly is going on when he spots the tablet in her hands.

“And what gave you the idea that you can look at my e-mails?” he asks her, raising an eyebrow. She probably hacked it, the little shit.

“Well it’s not _my_ fault that you forgot to log out. What kind of name is _Trip_ anyway?” Skye responds derisively, which he finds funny, coming from a person whose real name happens to be Mary Sue Poots.

He snatches the tablet out of her hands, glaring at her smirk. “It's Triplett, if you must know.”

Skye hops up to sit on a countertop, legs swinging. “So you gonna meet her?”

He shrugs, resuming what he’d been working on before she interrupted, ignoring that Skye probably shouldn’t be on the counter. “I can’t really say no, can I?”

This is new, Trip introducing him to a girl. He’s been friends with the specialist for more than two years, and Fitz never met any of Trip’s girlfriends. He must be really serious with this one. Truth be told, Trip never struck him as someone who would eventually settle down. Trip had always been popular with the girls, and he seemed to have been enjoying the attention until before he left for this particular mission.

Fitz himself has been dating around, never really getting into a serious relationship that would even make him think of settling down. The single life seems to suit him. He likes being alone. People like leaving him alone. Besides, he never met someone he’d be willing to spend his life with. The last time he ever came close to what people might call being “in love” was back when he was still at the Academy, and that girl _hated_ him.

She hated him so much, in fact, that she’d seen him as her rival, constantly trying to one-up him. And she would. She was brilliant, a genius like himself, and he always thought it was a pity she hated him so much, or maybe they could have been friends.

* * *

They arrange to meet at a quaint little restaurant, and Fitz feels his heart drop when he sees Trip walk in with a girl with wavy brown hair and a pair of honey-colored eyes he’d recognize anywhere.

“Fitz, this is Jemma. Jemma, Fitz,” Trip introduces, and Fitz tugs on the knot of his tie nervously, his stomach sinking. Up until a second ago, he had been irrationally hoping that this was Jemma Simmons’s twin sister and not the girl he’d spent a year at the Academy with a massive crush on.

After what feels like hours, Simmons is the one who speaks first.

“Been a while, Fitz. You didn’t change much.”

He tries not to notice that certain squeakiness in her voice that only comes out when she’s nervous, because that is definitely not the kind of thing you notice about a person you haven’t seen in almost a decade.

“Um...” _Darn it_. Six years have passed and she still has that effect on him. “You too,” he adds, resisting the urge to say what he really means.

_You’re still beautiful._

In fact, he thinks she might actually be _more_ beautiful, and even back then she'd always been the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen.

The rest of the night, Fitz wants nothing more than to sink into the floor. He's entranced by every word that comes out of Jemma's mouth, finding everything she says intelligent and witty. He spends a while trying to force himself to call her Simmons like he did before, like he's always done, but "Jemma" keeps slipping through his mind until he gives up fighting it. He doesn't even notice when he says it out loud as well.

Simmons is startled when she sees a familiar pale figure with unruly curls waiting for her and Trip in the restaurant. Trip had told her that his best friend was also from SciTech, but she never once imagined that it would be _Leopold Fitz_. Of all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents her boyfriend could’ve picked, it had to be her greatest rival. Fantastic.

Fitz does look a lot more handsome now, though, that much she would admit. His scrawny frame seems a bit more toned and just the right degree of lean, and his eyes look even bluer than she remembers. And she remembers them a lot. She’d always thought Leo Fitz was cute, even back in the Academy, with his boyish build and his shy smile. He was also the only person she found truly interesting at SciTech, and she always believed they would have been great friends if he didn’t hate her as much as he did. But this? This isn’t cute, nor simply interesting. This is _hot_.

She realizes that it’s foolish to appreciate her former nemesis like that when her boyfriend is right beside her, and Simmons shakes herself from her reverie, almost missing the way Fitz called her “Jemma.” He never called her that. It was always Simmons, or Dr. Simmons, or something else completely formal and distant. They were, after all, far from being friends. It was never “Jemma”, except when… well, except for that _one time_ , which she wills herself not to think about.

* * *

After taking Jemma home, Trip goes back to Fitz’s flat. “Hey, so, what’d you think of Jemma?”

“Fine,” Fitz says carefully, noncommittally.

“I’m thinking of asking her to marry me,” and with those words Fitz feels like he’s just been hit by a truck. Repeatedly. Followed by a bus.

“But...but didn’t you just meet her?” he stammers out, just to say something, _anything_. He’s suddenly acutely aware of his sped-up heartbeat that he thinks is so loud Trip _must_ be able to hear it.

He feels a mixture of shock and panic and confusion, and for a split second, Fitz allows himself to admit things he has since learned to ignore. Specifically, that he might be, probably, _definitely_ still in love with Jemma Simmons.

Except now she not only hates him, she's dating—and might soon be engaged to—his best friend.

Trip answers him with a shrug. “I know, man. It sounds crazy, but it just feels… right. Somehow. I think she’s the one and I just don’t think I can stand waiting any longer when I know it’s what I’ll end up doing anyway.”

“Go for it then.” Fitz’s mouth is dry as a bone and there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach like everything is or is about to be very, very wrong.

Trip grins. “Thanks. I knew you’d understand. I know you two hated each other at the Academy, but I was hoping in six years you’d gotten past that rivalry.”

Fitz wished he could hate Jemma. It would make everything a lot simpler.

He’s so caught up in imagining a world in which he truly does hate her that he almost misses Trip’s next words: “You’ll be the best man?” And he must have agreed to it, because Trip seems happy about his answer.

“So… I was wondering if I could ask one last favor.” Trip continues, and Fitz just _knows_ he’s going to get himself in more trouble, as if the situation isn’t already killing him as it is. “I was thinking if maybe you could spend some time with Jemma for the next couple of weeks? I’m going in for a short mission and I’d rather you look after her while I figure out how to propose.”

Fitz’s first thought is _no, absolutely freaking not_. Until it occurs to him that maybe spending time with Jemma can help him forget. Maybe if he could get to know her more, find out all her flaws and her faults, maybe he can convince himself that she really was nothing more than just a teenage crush. Maybe two weeks can teach him to hate Jemma Simmons.

Maybe two weeks can prove that the kiss that has haunted him for the past six years had been a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic title is from 'Roadside' by Rise Against, and the chapter title is from 'Kids on the Run' by The Tallest Man on Earth. Cindy (Anthropologicality) and are having so much fun writing this, so we hope you like it! -Jess


	2. ...from the poison we shared

_Six years ago_

The graduation ceremony at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy’s Sci-Tech Division was long and boring, just as Leo Fitz’s other graduation ceremonies had been. This one, however, was made slightly better by the fact that he got to stare at Jemma Simmons and listen to her eloquent speech for a long period of time.

This would be the last time he ever saw her, he thought suddenly. After today, it was extremely unlikely their paths would ever cross again.

With that thought in mind, as soon as the ceremony finished and Simmons was helping pick things up, he walked directly over to her from the stage.

She looked up when she heard him approaching. “Fitz?” She sounded surprised, and of course she was, since they’d never spoken and here he was coming up to talk to her.

He paused when he got to her, opened his mouth to speak, and found that words were failing him.

Simmons sighed. “Look, I know you hate me, but—”

And somehow hearing her speak gave him his sudden burst of both courage and insanity. He swooped in and kissed her, hard, and she made a shocked squeak when he pulled her a little closer to him before she started kissing back.

That was when he pulled away. “Congratulations, Jemma,” he said, voice thick, with a small smile and a half nod, walking away and leaving her standing there, staring after him, rendered completely speechless.

There were a lot of things Simmons expected from the person she just beat for valedictorian, but _this_ was not among them. She had been thinking of approaching him earlier, congratulate him for coming in second and maybe offer at least an amicable goodbye, but he beat her to it. She had just started to apologize—which was very uncharacteristic of Jemma Simmons in itself because really, why should she apologize for being brighter than everyone else?—when suddenly his lips were on hers and she was kissing Leopold Fitz and she could come up with a million equations to try to deny it but it felt _good_ and no amount of science could convince her otherwise.

She’d had her fair share of kisses at the Academy, most of which were far more heated than this, but somehow Jemma found herself amazed by how warm and soft and _right_ Fitz’s lips tasted against her mouth. It took all of her willpower not to moan when she felt his tongue sweep, just barely, across her lower lip, and she was just about to respond when he suddenly pulled away, and she was left dazed and breathless and lost in the blueness of his eyes. She almost chuckled at how ridiculous it was for something to feel both _not enough_ and _too much_ , but before she could even process his words, Fitz was walking away.

And for the first time in her adult life, Jemma Simmons allowed herself to feel hurt.

* * *

_Present day_

Simmons sits across from Fitz in his lab at Sci-Ops, watching him fix some sort of drone he calls Sleepy, and definitely not wondering whether his lips are still as soft as they were six years ago. She focuses instead on his hands, marveling at how deft they must be for Sleepy to stop making wheezing noises in just less than a minute. She never had that kind of manual agility herself, and even the engineer who would sometimes help repair her lab equipment never seemed to be _that_ good with his bare hands. No wonder she’d heard people call him the smartest person to come out of the Academy (which only mildly insulted her, because she _did_ graduate as valedictorian after all).

The problem is, thinking about his hands only leads to places she’d rather not go, like how those hands had felt drawing her closer and what _other_ things he might do with them, and to avoid that she tries to make conversation to distract herself.

“Why do you call it Sleepy?” It’s nothing much, but it’s something, and she'll take anything right now.

He looks over, heart soaring, thrilled that she’d taken an interest. “Well, they’re called D.W.A.R.F.S., and there are seven of them, so..." The name suddenly sounds foolish to him— _really, Fitz, naming them after a children's bedtime story? Right, she'll sure believe you're a genius now_ —but Simmons likes it and he relaxes.

It takes him more effort than necessary to fix Sleepy because _Jemma Simmons_ is in his lab, watching him work and looking genuinely interested. If this happened back at the Academy, he would probably have been too dumbstruck to get any work done, but he’s supposed to present the D.W.A.R.F.S. to a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (one of Fury’s favorites, he’d heard) in a week, and he’s not even halfway finished with the project.

“What’s the problem with her?”

“Well, I’ve already worked out her audio detection mechanism. She’s the best listener, even cancels out the white noise and all tha’, but she suddenly breaks down when I try activating the camera.”

“Then leave the camera to another D.W.A.R.F. Maybe you could have her focus on the audio, then another one on the visuals, and so on? Then maybe you could have all the bits of information delivered seamlessly onto a single monitor. That way they can each focus on their own tasks and the delivery will be much more efficient.”

He grins at her. “That’s brilliant.” He shouldn’t be surprised—she is, after all, the smartest person he’d ever met, and so of course she’d come up with the solution that had been eluding him ever since the D.W.A.R.F.S.’s earliest blueprints.

He tries to remind himself that he’s supposed to be hating her, but she did save him at least three days of work, and frankly, it’s refreshing to have someone to talk to who can actually understand him and even contribute to the project. She’s the first person he’s ever come across with the capability to keep up with him.

For a moment he attempts using that to his advantage— _know-it-all, smarty-pants, thinks she knows better than me_ —but he knows full well he’s lying to himself.

With Jemma’s new plan, D.W.A.R.F. repair is quicker and smoother than ever. Once he makes the appropriate modifications to give each a speciality, they’re better than he ever thought they could be.

He gets so caught up in his work and Jemma that he loses track of time until each droid is complete and functioning properly. He then glances at the clock and his stomach rumbles; they’d gone right past lunchtime and he hadn’t noticed and Jemma hadn’t said anything if she had.

“Simmons,” he calls. She’s hit with a twinge of sadness that he’s reverted back to using Simmons after the Jemma from the other night, but she stubbornly ignores it. “We’ve been here awhile, want to grab lunch? There’s a place nearby…” He trails off, letting the question hang in the air.

“Sounds great,” she says brightly, and heads out the door with Fitz after her.

They end up at a small Italian bistro downtown from the Sci-Ops building, and Fitz pulls out her chair when they’re shown their table.

The moment they step inside, Jemma immediately wishes they had gone somewhere more casual and less intimate, someplace else that doesn’t make it seem like a date. Oddly enough, she finds that she quite enjoys it, being able to go out with someone who’s evidently more interested in listening to her than getting into her pants. She briefly wonders if this is how things could have gone if they became friends back in the Academy, but eventually gets distracted by the easy conversation they fall into.

At one point, the old woman at the table next to them leans over and taps Jemma’s shoulder once lightly. “May I just say, you two make a very lovely couple. You remind me of my husband and I at that age.”

Fitz’s heart stops beating and somewhere in the back of his mind he’s wondering if it’s biologically possible for a person to blush red as a boiled lobster while simultaneously paling ghostly white or if he’s maybe a scientific oddity.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no,” Simmons protests. “We’re not a couple. No.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. You look so nice together.”

“Thank you,” Simmons replies shyly, feeling a slight blush form in her cheeks. _Thank you?_   What exactly is she being thankful for?

They spend the rest of the meal more quietly afterwards, carefully tiptoeing around what can be seen as acceptable behavior for two people who are barely even friends but are certainly tipping towards something close to that.

They almost race through their food, each eager to get back to the safety zone of the lab, where they can at least be alone and have work to distract them and provide conversational topics, and Simmons wants to tease Fitz good-naturedly for wolfing his down so fast, but she reminds herself that only friends can tease each other.

The walk back to Sci-Ops is just as silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts and still trying to figure out what they really are.

“So…” Fitz starts, deliberately trying to sound casual and not at all nervous like he actually is, “how did you and Trip end up together? No offense, but I never knew he was your type.”

She huffs at his statement, more amused than offended at the implication that he knows her dating preferences. As if he knew anything about her at all. “Can’t say you really know much about me, Fitz.” _You never bothered to._

“Yeah, I guess I don’t,” he replies, softly, in an effort to cloak the sadness in his voice. And it’s true. He doesn’t. He finds it tragically funny, how he was able to fall so ridiculously in love with someone he barely knew, and he suddenly feels the urgent need to know her now, not as an abstract concept he created to fit the “girl of his dreams,” but as a friend. As a person. As Jemma Simmons, with all her quirks and habits. How she takes her tea, how she works her way around the lab, the kind of music she listens to. He makes a decision right there and then.

He’ll give this friendship another shot. And hopefully he won’t mess it up. Not this time.

“Sim—Jemma. Um. Look, I know we were never really friends but I… I would like to try again. Only if you want to , I mean. We don’t have to, but if you want—”

“Fitz.” She cuts him off, reaching over to grasp his shaking hand, and flashes him a genuine smile. “I want to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two! This is being written almost unnaturally fast. Chapter title is the second part of the same quote that chapter one was named after, from "Kids on the Run" by The Tallest Man on Earth. -Cindy


	3. just a little change

The two scientists fall into a comfortable routine within the next few days, Jemma visiting Fitz in the lab and the two of them working on the D.W.A.R.F.S, going to the Italian bistro for lunch, sometimes going out for drinks when they reach a project milestone. They quickly find it easier, being in each other’s presence, and somewhere along the way, they stop pretending that they don’t enjoy it. Somewhere along the way, she learns to laugh at his terrible jokes and he learns to stop blushing when she does. Somewhere along the way, they discover that their sentences sound better together, melded and mashed and flowing in a natural rhythm, and they eventually stop berating themselves for not being friends sooner, because they are, now, and that’s what matters.

It’s one night about a week into Trip’s absence and their newfound friendship when they’ve finished their work early, that Jemma suggests a celebration at the bar and Fitz gladly takes her up on the offer.

Most bar nights, they have one beer each, occasionally one and a half. But tonight is special; tonight, they’ve finally perfected the drones, and so the one-and-a-half-beer milestone is passed rather quickly by both of them, going into beers number three and four.

It’s when they return to Fitz’s flat that night that the scales tip to a much more dangerous degree. They’re on the couch talking and they’re so comfortably close together and his body is so warm and Simmons has had a few too many beers, and before she can stop herself, she’s leaning her head on his chest and his arms are wrapped around her shoulders and the mere closeness of him flushes every bit of caution out her system. It comes as a whisper, broken and barely audible, and he feels it spoken against his skin even before the sound reaches his ears.

_I wish you never walked away._

* * *

They don’t talk about it in the morning, because of the many things Fitz and Simmons have learned over the past week, talking about their feelings is not one of them. Instead they follow the same routine and the same rhythm they’ve developed, but even as they talk with most of the same ease as usual, they’re both painfully aware of the elephant in the room.

They awake the next morning groaning and squinting in Fitz’s bed. Fitz blindly gropes behind him to grab a blanket to put over their faces but can’t find one and so pulls up the one over them, but on the way up he accidentally punches himself in the face.

He lets out an _oof_ that makes Jemma giggle and then groan and put her hand to her head because of it. After a moment she asks, “Fitz, why are we in the same bed?”

Fitz’s eyes open to meet Jemma’s. “I’ve got my clothes on,” he realizes. “You?”

She nods slowly once. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so nothing…”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing at all.”

Which is a lie. A big blatant lie. Sure, nothing _sexual_ happened, but everything else has changed and they both know it. And of course, they ignore it. Because they’re geniuses, and geniuses just have to be stupid sometimes.

Jemma slowly drags herself out of the bed, aiming to get aspirin for them and crawl right back into bed. And that’s exactly what she does. Fitz is grateful for the painkillers and scoots a little closer to her when she slips back under the covers.

“Did you know,” she says after the headache has started to subside a little, “that a hangover is caused by not enough water being available in your body to run the Krebs cycle?”

He tries to come up with a snarky remark that involves having basic knowledge of biology, thank you very much, but loses all the words when he is hit by the realization of just how impossibly gorgeous she is, even with bed head. It’s unfair, how she manages to take his breath away just by being her and being there. And it’s also torturous, because he _really_ shouldn’t be thinking of how badly he wants to wake up to that cute little sleepy face every morning, so in the end he just squeaks out a weak “Yeah?” in response to her question. _Smooth, Fitz. That’s real smooth._

Fitz’s stomach growls and he grins sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Jemma smiles. “It’s okay.” She sits and swings her legs off the bed. “Pancakes?”

He nods and gets up to follow her, and he heads to get the griddle while Jemma pulls out the ingredients and measures them out with all the same precision she has when dealing with chemicals in the lab. Fitz takes the bowl from her when she’s done and mixes.

He carefully pours out the batter, taking great pride in the fact that each pancake is approximately the same size.

She watches Fitz practically _beam_ with pride at his symmetrically structured pancakes, and he looks so ridiculously cute that she has to restrain herself from pushing him against the kitchen counter and kissing him senseless. _Stupid, Jemma. Stupid stupid stupid._ She shakes off the thought, along with the nagging awareness that she hasn’t felt this carefree in years.

Fitz is so focused on his perfect pancakes that he almost doesn’t notice her staring at him with a look that he would probably mistake as desire, if not for the fact that she’s dating someone else. Her eyes are too pretty and he knows it’s too much so he shifts his gaze down her face and _shite_ that was a mistake because her lips are apparently even prettier and they look so plump and he really _really_ wants to kiss her right now.

Jemma catches him staring at her mouth and suppresses a giggle. She steps in closer to him and for a moment they just stay there, eyes fixed on each other’s lips but neither of them doing anything about it, until something diverts his attention and he scrunches his nose, seemingly trying to figure out what’s off.

And that’s when Fitz suddenly shrieks and starts flapping his arms about madly.

“What?” Jemma cries, jumping back with a yelp.

“Spider! There’s a bloody spider crawling on my shoulder!”

“Stop, you’ll hurt him!” Jemma instructs him immediately, trying to move toward him to get the spider while steering clear of his arms. “Fitz, calm down! Hold still and I’ll catch him!”

“How can I be bloody calm?!” His voice has reached an almost impossibly high pitch. The spider then crawls inside his shirt, and he shrieks somehow even louder and tears the shirt off, wriggling and writhing to get it off and running and slapping his hands frantically all over his body to cast the spider away.

He finally manages to catch hold of it and takes great satisfaction in seeing it fly across the room. Jemma scurries after it and scoops it up, cradling it in her hands tenderly.

“Oh, it’s okay, you’re fine, we’ll get you outside and away from Fitz here…”

“What’re you, _cooing_ to the damned bloody thing?”

“He’s just as scared as you are, Fitz. More so after you flung him across the room like that!”

“He was crawlin’ all over me!” Jemma opens the door and lets the spider loose outside. It’s then that she realizes what she’d overlooked in the confusion: Fitz is now shirtless. And clad only in a pair of boxers. With rockets on them.

Her initial attraction to him that first night at the restaurant was _nothing_ compared to what she feels now, because no amount of self-restraint could have prepared her for the sight of an almost-naked Fitz. Her scientist self cannot help but gawp at his well-formed trapezius muscles. He’s not bulky, not in the least, but _hot damn_ those shoulders will be the death of her. She allows herself a moment to envy the spider for being able to crawl over that torso, when she realizes that she is very conspicuously ogling him.

_No Jemma. Stop. You’re just friends. Friends don’t ogle each other. You can do this._

She clears her throat. “I—I think you should get back to buttering...” _My muffin._ “...those pancakes.”

“Okay.” He walks back over to the counter where the pancakes are waiting and she lets herself stare at his ass as he goes.

* * *

The drones are ready, and they’re merely finishing the project report (Fitz couldn’t help but smile when he saw their names on the paper, printed right next to each other like it’s always been their rightful place), when Skye bursts into the lab.

“Hey Fitzy have you seen—Oh. Oh hi um, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something? Sorry it’s just, Fitz has never brought a girl here before and—”

“Skye.” Fitz stops her before she can say anything else that would embarrass them all. “This is Jemma, my friend Trip’s girlfriend.” _Girlfriend._ He tries not to wince at the term. “She’s working on the D.W.A.R.F.S. with me.”

“Who the hell is—ahh, that one with the weird name. Right. Well, nice to meet you, Jemma. Good to see you’re getting along with Mr. Grumpy Cat over here. He’s been stressing over those elves—”

“D.W.A.R.F.S.”

“— _dwarves_ for weeks.”

“Nice to meet you too, Skye. And trust me, I’m also surprised that we were even able to work together without murdering each other, given our rivalry back in the Academy.”

Oh no. No no no no no no. _Shit._

He had told Skye once, during one of the rare times he let her drag him to the pub, about having been in love with his rival at the Academy. And he is more than certain that she still remembers it. Skye remembers every single embarrassing thing about Fitz. She’s a great friend like that.

Skye’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, _really_?” She smirks and looks directly at Fitz, and that single look conveys that yes, she will question him extensively and tease him about this later.

He lets out a sigh of relief when she leaves it at that, thankful that despite all the teasing they do, the truth is that Skye _is_ a great friend, and he knows she’ll never put him in a situation as awkward as his best friend’s soon-to-be-fiancée finding out about his past feelings.

Skye does, however, make it her mission to put the two scientists in the most awkward situations possible afterwards. Locking them in the lab, hoarding every item in the pantry so that they would have to go out for lunch every day, hanging a very conspicuous mistletoe above their joint work table even though it’s nowhere near Christmas. At some point, they stop trying to avoid her shenanigans and just let themselves enjoy their time together, perhaps a little too much. So much so that Fitz has to stop and remind himself every once in a while that _they_ —whatever they are now—are not permanent. All good things, after all, come to an end. And though being around Jemma on a daily basis might just be the greatest thing to happen to him, they’ll soon be done with the project, and she’ll soon be his best friend’s fiancée.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow look, we actually managed to fluff!
> 
> We really like this chapter a lot, and it's the longest so far. And it's brought to you by such wonderful things as Jemma Simmons's spiders and Iain de Caestecker's ass.
> 
> Special thanks go to George. Mmm.
> 
> Oh, and the chapter title is from "Tale as Old as Time" from Beauty and the Beast--incidentally, the song this fic was almost named after.
> 
> -Cindy


	4. just promise me (you'll never leave again)

The project presentation goes unsurprisingly well, and Agent Phil Coulson seems to be impressed with the D.W.A.R.F.s, and with the two scientists. (At one point, he even addressed them as Fitz-Simmons, which only made Fitz blush for two minutes). Fitz is both proud and relieved that the project is done, really, but he also can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment that he won’t be working with Simmons anymore.

At least they’re friends now, he reminds himself, and it’s enough to brush the disappointment off and focus on their little victory.  They go straight to his flat after the presentation, celebratory movie nights now being a matter of habit, and it still surprises Fitz how they have gone from sworn enemies to this level of closeness in just less than a couple of weeks.

“So… _Pacific Rim_ or _Jurassic Park_?”

“Fitz, both are scientifically inaccurate and you know it. How about _Love Actually_?”

“No. No no no no no. I am not watching that romantic trash.” Frankly, he’d watch almost anything with her, but definitely not a movie with a guy who’s in love with his best friend’s wife.

“Ugh. Fine, then. Roshambo?”

He nods at her suggestion, smiling. It’s another ritual they’ve developed over the past week, resorting to a game of roshambo in lieu of the usual bickering when they reach a deadlock, which they encounter a lot.

He loses. Naturally. She picks _The Notebook_ just to spite him, because they’re friends now, and friends can tease each other, after all. 

A few minutes in, the two have managed to curl up together on the couch, both enjoying each other’s presence more than the movie itself. 

“Fitz?” Simmons suddenly asks with a playful tone he hasn’t heard before. “If you were one of the Seven Dwarfs, which one would you be?”

The question takes him by surprise, as most things about Jemma Simmons tend to do, and he takes a moment to come up with what he thinks is the most mature choice. “Uh…Doc, I guess?”

“Nah, I think you’re Grumpy,” Simmons says thoughtfully, before adding, “Skye would agree,” because of course she would. “Or Bashful. You can be shy and sweet. Cute, too. Especially when you get all flustered and—ooooh see you’re doing it again!” 

She giggles, and his heart does some kind of somersault and he wants it to _stop_ , wants it to quit reacting so helplessly to the mere sound of her voice before he does something he knows he will regret in the morning.

But he looks at her and she’s the most breathtaking sight he’s ever seen and he doesn’t have a single doubt left that he is hopelessly, irretrievably in love with her and he can’t take it anymore and so even though a small piece of him is telling him it’s a gigantic mistake he leans over and kisses her for the second time.

She responds almost immediately with vigor, their bodies instinctively gravitating closer together until they’re tangled up in one another on the couch and everything about it feels _so_ right, like this was what they were born to do, like each and every one of their atoms had simply been waiting since the dawn of creation to be the two of them, right now, in this moment.

His hand rests on the small of her back, keeping her close, and her hands are on his neck and she does something with her tongue that makes Fitz moan.

And that’s when Trip chooses the completely wrong time to enter his mind and Fitz suddenly realizes what exactly he’s doing, who exactly he’s kissing. He jumps up with a cry.

Jemma stares at him, confused and disappointed, while Fitz panics. “Ah, Jem—Simmons, sorry, I was stupid, I was stupid and selfish, you’re my best mate’s girlfriend and you hate me and I was stupid, this was a mistake, I’m sorry—I’ll just go now and we’ll just forget this ever happened—”

He hates feeling guilty for being in love with her. He used to hate being afraid, too, but he realizes now that being sorry is much, much worse. 

He’s just starting to turn to flee when Jemma’s hand on his arm stops him. “Oh, no,” she says, voice low and broken. “No, no, _no_. Leopold Fitz, you do _not_ get to walk away from me again!”

Fitz only has one brief, fleeting second of confusion before she’s pulled him to her—and he realizes that she’s standing now and he doesn’t remember when that happened—and crashed their lips together once more.

It’s different this time; shorter, more urgent, meant to convey her feelings. She’s also the one to break it apart and then press more kisses to his face, whispering, “Why did you have to walk away?”

“Wha’?”

“At graduation. After you kissed me. Why did you walk away?” After she finished kissing him she’d buried her face in his shoulder, and she pulls back now to look at him in the eye. “I thought we could be friends, but you hated me, and then you kissed me, and—”

He groans. “Bloody hell, Jemma, you thought I hated you? You were the one who hated me!”

“You avoided me at all costs and always tried to outdo me!”

“Yeah, ’cause I wanted to impress you because I was in love with you!”

They’re both silent then, the raised voices suddenly coming to a halting silence as they stare at each other and take in what he’s just said.

“You...you were in love with me,” she says slowly, incredulously. “At the Academy. You were in love with me.”

He inhales and desperately scours his brain for a way to get out of this, but he comes up empty and so simply nods sadly. “Yeah.” _I still am_ , he mentally screams at her, wishing desperately that he could proclaim it to the world, yell it into the Grand Canyon, broadcast it on every TV and every radio across the globe, _I still am, I still love you, I’ve never stopped loving you for a single day of my life since I first saw you._

“And what about now?” she asks tenderly, stepping closer to his space, eyes wide and questioning, and he finds himself drawn by the expectancy in them.   _This time_ , he thinks, this time there’s no turning back.

“I still am.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know what to say.  It’s her least favorite feeling in the world, the feeling of _not knowing_ , and Jemma Simmons has been so used to a life of knowing everything that she has grown to hate being confused. She tries to wrap her mind around it, tries to figure it out like she does with cat livers and alien artifacts and all her other experiments, but he’s staring at her with a piercing mixture of tenderness and intensity and for the first time in her twenty-six years of existence, she gives in to her emotions and ignores the voice telling her that what she’s about to say is a terrible, _terrible_ mistake.

“I think—I think I’m in love with you, too.” She’d half-expected to immediately regret saying it, but she soon learns that admitting she’s in love with a certain Leopold Fitz is the easiest thing in the world.

“But what about Trip?” he stupidly points out. “He’s a great guy and he really likes you, you know.” He wants to say Trip loves her, because he knows it’s true and Jemma deserves to know that if she doesn’t already, but the thought of hearing those words said aloud, and by his own voice to boot, churns his stomach and bile raises up in his throat.

Jemma deflates, shoulders sagging. “I know. He is.”

Fitz gazes into her eyes and Jemma swears he’s looking straight through to her soul. “He’s my best friend,” he says. “I can’t do this to him.”

“Me either.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and Jemma steals one last selfish act by murmuring, “Once more?”

And he knows exactly what she means, because of course he does, and he gently presses his lips to hers and this one is soft, tender, and sweet, with an overwhelming sadness. It’s a goodbye kiss.

They’ve shared three kisses by now, but somehow the fourth manages to encapsulate all three previous ones, lips and teeth and tongues carrying six years of pent-up affection and longing. It’s both a hello and a goodbye, both the beginning and the end, it’s every “I’m sorry” and “I love you” and “I am _right here_ ” they should have shared all those years, and it’s tragically ironic but they take it because it’s all they’ve got.

They pull back eventually, almost and not quite, the ghosts of their contact lingering in each other’s skin, and they both know that this is them clinging to every last bit of nearness they can afford. It’s then that Jemma’s rational self comes crawling back, and she heaves a deep sigh before speaking again.

“Maybe we just need some time, yeah? To think.” Think. It’s what both of them do best, but it’s also what kept them from each other all those years and she’d really rather not do any more thinking now, but they _have to_.

Not trusting himself to speak in case he mucks everything up even further, he nods in agreement, punctuating it with an affectionate kiss on her forehead. He has to consciously force his muscles to do so, and this is the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life because now that he finally has her as a friend, he can’t lose her again, because it’s only been two weeks but it feels more like forever has passed and already he can’t imagine his life void of her.

“Yeah. I need to wrap up the paperwork on the D.W.A.R.F.s, anyway, and Trip’s returning tomorrow—” _To propose to you_ , he almost adds but doesn’t, because it’s not his place and he doesn’t want to take from Trip anything more than what he already has.

“We’ll still be friends, though, right? No matter what happens?” It sounds more hopeful than questioning, and he nods instinctively because by now it’s almost impossible for him to say no to Simmons.

He pulls her back to him and presses another kiss on the top of her head, whispering, “Yeah. ’Course we will.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, there it is. The short-lived happy ending. [evil laughter echoes in the distance] Trip comes back next chapter (which will be the last, I think? then a maybe-epilogue)! EXCITING TIMES. 
> 
> A few fun facts:  
> 1\. Chapter title is from 'One' by Ed Sheeran  
> 2\. Both Cindy and I actually hate Love Actually, so... *shrugs*  
> 3\. Did you know that there are several different names for the Seven Dwarfs? My personal favorite is _Purzelbaum_. So cute.
> 
> -Jess


	5. till all my sleeves are stained red with all the truth that i've said

It’s the day of Trip’s return. The day Fitz will have to stop spending time with Jemma, because he’s sure he’s not going to be able to bear seeing her and Trip together, doing couple-y things and being engaged.

“Fitz!” Trip calls merrily as he enters Fitz’s flat, raising up the arm not holding a bag for a hug. “Hey, man. Good to see you.” He takes a few more steps, swings the bag up on the table, and digs through it. “Check this out.”

Trip presents him with a box containing a beautiful gold ring with a large diamond in the center. “What do you think?”

Fitz coughs in an attempt to get his voice to come out normally. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna propose on our date tomorrow night.”

In that moment, Fitz is hit with the full reality of what he’d done and how truly awful it is, what a horrible person and friend he is. He has to come clean, knows he has to, or he’ll never be able to live with the consequences, never be able to stop the knowledge of how despicable he is, aware that Trip doesn’t know the truth.

“I kissed Jemma.”

Trip freezes. “You _what_?”

“I kissed her. I know, I’m sorry, you have every right to be mad—”

“I know I do. I’m just choosing to be confused right now. What the _hell_ Fitz?”

Fitz hangs his head and keeps his eyes low, trained to the ground, and when he speaks his voice is extremely quiet. “I’m sorry. I...I really didn’t mean to fall in love with her.”

“You’re _in love_ with her?”

Fitz sinks down onto the couch. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“In two weeks?”

He shakes his head vigorously. “Since the Academy.”

“But you two hated each other!”

Again, Fitz shakes his head. “Actually, turns out we never did. I was too scared to talk to her ’cause I fancied her, and she wanted to be friends, and I thought she hated me and she thought I hated her.” He looks up. “I’m sorry, Trip. I really am.”

Trip sits down at the other end of the couch from where Fitz is. He doesn’t say anything for a long while in which the pressure increases on Fitz with every second that ticks by until he’s ready to crumple from the weight of it all, and then Trip asks, “Does she...?”

Fitz doesn’t answer, can’t answer, can’t bring himself to strike the final nail into the coffin and reaffirm what Trip already knows to be true, but of course his silence is good enough.

He looks at the ring sadly. “Well, guess I won’t be proposing now.”

Fitz’s head shoots up. “No! No, please, do it. It has to be her choice.” And he means it. Jemma might have said she _thinks_ she’s in love with him, but that hesitation is enough to prevent him from assuming that she’d ultimately choose him. Fitz wasn’t really used to being anyone’s choice, much less Jemma Simmons’s.

* * *

Jemma taps her feet nervously, fidgeting with the little paper squares she’s been shuffling for the past hour. They’re cue cards. _Breakup aids_ , is what she calls them. She’s supposed to be meeting with Trip today, and last night, after several days of teetering between guilt and confusion and her now-certain feelings for Fitz, she resolved that _this_ is the day she stops lying. Trip has been nothing but good to her, and he deserves better than... this.

She spent hours on the cards, scribbling the least painful and most truthful words she could think of to make Trip understand that it’s not anyone’s fault, and most especially not his.

Trip arrives several minutes later, just as scared and nervous but for a completely different reason. He had been hell-bent on marrying Simmons. Hell, he just spent two weeks planning this proposal, but Fitz’s confession from last night turned everything around. He’s still certain he loves her, though. And he trusts her enough to make a decision that would hurt the least number of people, because that’s what Simmons does. She reduces the hurt to the least possible degree. And if _he_ ends up being the one getting hurt, then so be it.

He knows he’s screwed the moment she greets him with a hesitant kiss on the cheek, because even for Jemma, who’s hardly ever affectionate in public, it just feels wrong.

“Hi, Jem,” Trip says brightly, steeling himself as he clutches the velvet box in his pocket. He’s had a feeling that something’s off, but when she replies with a nervous and shaky “Hi,” it finally clicks. They may have only been dating for a few months, but Simmons is easily the most transparent person he has ever met. And he knows that look. It’s the same look he saw Fitz try to hide last night, and he instantly knows what’s coming.

“Is there anything you need to tell me?”

“Oh um. Yeah I...”

“It’s Fitz, isn’t it?”

She gapes at him, as the thirty or so reasons written on her cards are suddenly rendered useless, because he _knows_.

“How...how did you know?” Simmons asks weakly, wincing when she realizes that she just admitted to being in love with her boyfriend’s best friend.

“You’re a surprisingly bad liar, Agent Simmons,” Trip says with a sad smile. He figures it should hurt to be rejected before even proposing, and it does, but it also surprises him how naturally it all unfolds. Like this is how things were always meant to end.

“I’m sorry, Trip. I—I really didn’t mean to fall in love with him,” she says quietly, and he would have scoffed at her if he weren’t already chuckling. It was quite adorable, he’d give them that.

She had braced herself for harsh words, maybe even some shouting but he…is he _laughing_?

“Trip? What’s wrong?” Stupid question. _Everything’s wrong, silly. You just broke up with him._

“No it’s just… I think I’ve heard that from someone else,” Trip says with a sad smile. “Hey Jem? Promise me something?”

“Anything. I mean, anything but, you know, get married or something.” Jemma chuckles good-naturedly, but stops and shuts her mouth with her hand upon realizing how insensitive that sounds. She is really terrible at this.

“Funny you should say that. I was actually planning to propose.”

Jemma gapes at him. _Propose?_ That certainly wasn’t what she was expecting. She’s even guiltier than before, now that she knows that Trip not only loves her, but loves her enough to want to marry her...and here she is, falling in love with his best friend. What a great person she is.

“Don’t worry, I knew you’d say no.”

“How?”

“Fitz told me last night he’s in love with you. I suspected you might feel the same way.”

“I… I hope you know that I’m really sorry, Trip. Not for what I feel for Fitz, but for feeling it at the wrong time and you being in the middle of it all.”

“I know. I know you are. Granted, that doesn’t make it hurt less, but at least you chose to hurt me by being honest than by lying to my face. I have to thank you for that. But anyway, promise me you won’t let him get away.”

“I don’t know, Trip. I don’t think that’s a decision I can make alone.”

“Yeah, but I know Fitz. He’s probably going to overthink it and think you want nothing to do with him. You’ll have to catch him, because he’s terrified, and so he’ll avoid you, because he’ll talk himself into thinking that’s what you want him to do.”

Jemma lets his words sink in, and she nods, her mind made up. She then reaches across the table and places her hand on Trip’s, and it somehow feels less like a romantic gesture and more like one between friends, or maybe that’s simply her wishful thinking. “Thank you, Trip. For everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go, the moment so many of you have been waiting for--Trip's back! And he was pretty cool about it. Antoine Triplett: actual chillest person on planet Earth.
> 
> One more chapter before the epilogue!
> 
> Chapter title is from "Secrets" by OneRepublic. And it only took us ten minutes to come up with it this time.
> 
> -Cindy


	6. into the peace i left behind

 Several weeks go by in one long blur for Fitz. He gets up, goes to work, and comes home, and doesn’t care about any of it because none of it matters anymore if he can’t look forward to Jemma’s company now that he reckons she’s probably deciding on wedding details and trying to forget she ever met anyone named Leopold Fitz.

He tries not to be bitter and angry about that, because he wants to be happy for Trip like he deserves, and he especially wishes that he could be content with knowing that the love of his life is happy, and maybe he will—in time—but for now, he just can’t. He’s angry. He’s angry with Trip for finding her and being smart enough to make a move first, but most of all, he’s angry at himself for being too scared to talk to her all those years ago, and it’s right then that Fitz thinks that if he could go back in time, just for a moment, he’d walk over to her seat, clasp his hands on his backpack straps, and finally say “hi.”

The one and only thing that sticks out in his memory is receiving word that he’s been accepted into the exclusive team headed by Agent Phil Coulson, despite failing his field exams. He’d worked in the lab in celebration, finding that he simply couldn’t enjoy the news without Jemma.

And now it’s here, the day he leaves Sci-Ops and officially joins the team. In a way, he’s grateful for the change, as Sci-Ops holds memories of Jemma and field work might be a welcome distraction.

He carries all of his things into his new lab that he’s told he’ll be sharing with another scientist, which was a last-minute change, as he’d been told he was applying for a one-man position. He dreads the thought of having to work with someone else; in the past, any collaboration he tried had only ended in him taking over and being agitated at the other person. Jemma was the first to truly keep up.

Sighing, he unloads the night-night gun, a prototype of a gun designed to stun its target, but Fitz is not an expert in biochemistry and so for now, the gun is useless. Eventually, he’ll send it back in to Sci-Ops to have another scientist finish it, but he has to perfect the design first. Maybe his new coworker will be able to help, he muses.

He hears footsteps behind him, hardly even registering the sound as he starts putting the D.W.A.R.F.S. in their proper places, and then the person speaks and his blood runs cold.

“Hi! You must be who I’m working with. I’m Jemma Simmons, I’m just going to put my things down so I can come have a look at you.”

He slowly turns. “Jemma?” he croaks out, and Jemma stops dead. She looks up from setting her things on the countertop, face ashen white.

_“Fitz.”_

And then she launches herself at him and squeezes her arms around him as tightly as she can.

He hugs her back, selfishly taking her in and relishing in this moment. It’s the most alive he’s felt since he last saw her, and he can feel all of his stress melt away and his happiness restored simply from the sight and and sheer nearness of her.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Jemma whispers into his neck. Fitz, too, is convinced that there’s simply no possible way for this to be real, that the universe couldn’t be so cruel as to give him the opportunity to see Jemma every minute of every day, to work alongside her, but not be allowed to love her.

They stay like that for longer than is probably necessary, longer than what’s acceptable for two people who are supposed to be “just” friends, for two people who are in love while one is engaged to someone else.

Then Jemma moves to kiss him, but he stops her before she can. She looks at him, confusion and hurt evident in her expression, and scans his face for an answer.

He looks at her sadly. “Jemma, please don’t,” he begs, breathlessly forcing the words out. “Please. If I start kissing you, I’ll never know how to stop.”

“Then don’t.”

“Simmons.” _Simmons_ tastes foreign in his mouth now, now that he knows intimately the feel of Jemma, but calling her that will help him distance himself from her. “You’re engaged.”

“No, I’m not.”

Now it’s Fitz’s turn to be confused. “But he—didn’t you—?”

Jemma shakes her head. “He didn’t. And I was breaking up with him that night anyway. It would’ve been unfair to him to say yes when I’m in love with you.”

He can’t help the flutter his heart does at that. “So that means…” He doesn’t have to finish the question before she’s nodding.

“Yeah.” She smiles brightly, looking at him hopefully.

So he does exactly what she wants and this is his favorite kiss yet because this time there’s no obstacles in the way; this time, he is hers and she is his.

They only stop when they’re interrupted by a loud thump and a “Fitzsimmons?” and turn to see a very unimpressed man who, from the looks of it, has just unceremoniously dropped his bag onto the ground.

“Fitz,” she responds, pointing at him.

“Simmons,” he returns, pointing back. “I’m engineering, she’s biochem.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is it! It's been fun writing this. Thank you _so much_ to everyone who read, most especially those who have been commenting regularly. Your feedback is valuable to us :) (wow i sound like a sign in a retail shop or something) But anywaaaay, as promised, there will be a teeny tiny epilogue, but that might take some time. 
> 
> SUPER FUN FACT OF THE DAY is that Cindy wrote this entire chapter. Haha. She's amazing. I love her. Chapter title is from 'Heaven' by 3 Doors Down.
> 
> Oh and again, credits go to blake-wyatt on tumblr for the idea that started it all!
> 
> —Jess


	7. Epilogue

Jemma moves towards the man and swabs his cheek, adding in some friendly babble to try to keep her head after what had just happened, while Fitz takes the man’s comms device and smashes it despite protests that it’s brand-new.

Just when Fitz finishes the phone is when there’s a bright, bubbly “Hey guys!” Fitz freezes—this was the last voice in the world he expected to hear.

“ _Skye_?!” he bursts out incredulously. “What the hell are you doing here?”

She beams. “I’m on the team! Looks like we’re teammates, Fitzy!”

Fitz stares at her in shock, too dumbstruck to say anything more because Skye as not only a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but an agent on the same team as him, seems like a terrible idea. She leans over to look behind him and waves. “Oh hey...Jemma, right?” Jemma raises her hand in greeting.

Skye then focuses her attention on the one person in the room she doesn’t know. “Hey. I’m Skye. You?”

“Ward.”

Then two more people enter the lab, and Ward looks even more uncomfortable with everything than before, and Fitz and Simmons let out a collective gasp.

“We were told we’d be working with Director Phil Coulson—” Fitz starts.

“—but no one mentioned the _Cavalry_!” Jemma finishes. Both their eyes are wide, completely starstruck.

The Cavalry glares. “I’m just the pilot.” With that, she spins on her heel and walks out.

“Wow, what’s with her?” asks Skye.

“Call her May,” says Phil Coulson.

After a brief team meeting, Coulson talks to FitzSimmons in private (apparently, that’s what they’re called now, and neither of the two even stop to question it, not when it sounds and feels _right_ , like this is how things were always supposed to be. Like they are finally, _finally_ falling into place.). However, they’re both surprised to find out that it was Trip who recommended them for the new team.

* * *

 Later that night, when he and Jemma are apart for the first time all day, Fitz sits in his bunk and dials Trip’s number.

Trip picks up with a cheery “Hey, man!”

Fitz takes a deep breath before speaking. “Hey, Trip.”

“How’s the plane?”

“It’s, uh, yeah, it’s nice. Big. Fast. Listen, Trip—” he cuts himself off, pondering a moment over the way he wants to go about this.

“Director Coulson told us that you recommended us for the team, so I just wanted...I wanted to say thank you.”

“Us? So Jemma did go? Good. And you’re welcome. Anytime.”

“Yeah, she’s here. But why? Why did you do it?”

“Well I figured you two deserved to be happy. Otherwise one of you would’ve gone off on that plane and both of you would be miserable. Besides, you were obviously avoiding both of us, Fitz. Which, frankly, was very… how would you say it… _arsehole_ -ish of you. You could have seen how worried Jemma was when she went to tell you that we sorted it out and you were just… gone.”

Fitz swallows, the idea of Jemma worried terrible to him. He makes a mental note to apologize to her later, which will probably involve a lot of kissing.

“Uh. Yeah. About that. I thought you were engaged, and I didn’t want to ruin it. I, uh…” He heaves a deep sigh, finally deciding that the only acceptable explanation for his actions is the truth. _Explanation_ , not excuse. He’s been making excuses all his life and he’s simply tired of running away from his feelings. “I just want her to be happy. More than anything in the world. And for a long time I led myself to believe that staying away was the only way to do that.”

He can practically hear Trip’s grin. “You’re a good guy, Fitz.”

“You too. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool. You two were always meant to be anyway.”

Suddenly a body barricades into him, and he lets out an _oof_ but is rewarded with Jemma’s arms wrapped tightly around him. She starts kissing every inch of his face she can reach before landing on his lips for a long time.

“Leopold Fitz, you are the sweetest man alive,” she declares, swinging her leg over so she’s straddling him, and kisses him again. She takes the phone out of a speechless, awestruck Fitz’s hand. “Hey, Trip. Fitz has to go now, we’ll call you back later.”

Trip laughs. “Have fun, Jemma.”

“Oh I will.”

* * *

 Life on the BUS turns out to be an extraordinary experience for the two scientists (“Fitz, it’s the most perfect opportunity for us to see the world!”) and they soon find themselves getting used to and actually enjoying life in the field—hunting down 0-8-4’s, working with gifteds, living in a plane flown by _the Cavalry_ —it’s like a dream come true, made even better by the fact that they’re together.

They tried to keep it discreet at first, they really did. But apparently, a secret relationship is not something that can remain secret for so long when you’re living with super spies. And _Skye_ , of all people.

Starting a relationship in the field, with the danger of losing each other always looming around, Fitz and Simmons agree to take it slow and just relish in their togetherness while trying to stay alive.

So of course, Fitz proposes to Jemma two months after they join the team, sure he’ll never love anyone else even a tenth of how much he loves her, and he already lived without her once and he can’t do it again.

The wedding takes place on the Academy grounds, the place they first kissed, on the anniversary of their graduation.

Director Coulson puts a great deal of thought into planning their wedding, making sure everything is perfect. His favorite part is the flower arrangements. He also convinced them to allow him to DJ, and the dances are now mostly songs from the 1940s, and they suspected it was probably because that’s what Steve Rogers would have listened to back before he was frozen. Fitz doesn’t mind so much, not when it allows him to hold Jemma close to dance with her.

By the seventh consecutive Bing Crosby song, the dance crowd has died down and the newlyweds are left alone in the middle of the dance floor. Fitz takes a small step back to take another look (possibly the 56257th that night) at his wife. _Wife._ Jemma Simmons, former nemesis and unrequited crush of almost seven years, is now his wife. He lets out a chuckle at how unbelievable yet so incredibly _real_ it all feels.

“What?” Jemma asks, tone teasing, but her eyes never lose their awestruck gaze on her husband, who is now laughing rather adorably at the middle of the dance floor.

“Nothing. Just basking in how lucky I am.” Fitz says, still giggling as he steps back closer to her.

She’s gorgeous. She’s still looking at him with those bright, sparkling eyes and he thinks his heart might have stopped beating for a while, except it has been beating for her for six years now, and this definitely isn’t the time to stop. He takes her hand and presses tiny kisses to each of her knuckles.

“Dance with me?”

She rolls her eyes affectionately. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been dancing for over an hour, but okay.”

He pulls her close and she wraps her arms around him, tucking her head into his neck, leaving a brief kiss there before breathing out an almost-silent _You’re my best friend in the world_. Fitz hears her soft declaration, and he arrives at the conclusion that hearing Jemma, _his Jemma_ , say those words is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. He tightens his hold around her waist and presses his lips firmly on her temple, trying to swallow down the slight quiver of his voice as he whispers back an “I love you, too” against her hair.

And suddenly it switches midsong from Dean Martin to Nicki Minaj’s _Super Bass_.

Fitz and Jemma look at each other and start laughing. “I was wondering where Skye’d gone off to,” Jemma chokes out.

Fitz points up at the DJ stand, where Skye has clearly commandeered the controls and is making out with Trip, him in Coulson’s chair and her in his lap, while Coulson stands just outside the booth with a look of horror on his face.

“You reckon he’s more upset she took over or that his baby girl’s making out with someone?”

And then Fitz smiles as the familiar opening chords reach his ears; he’d specifically requested this song be included the wedding mix. Coulson wasn’t happy to play a song Captain America wouldn’t have liked back in his day, and it wasn’t peppy and trashy enough for Skye, but luckily, as the groom they obeyed his wishes.

He leans close to Jemma’s ear, and she shivers at his warm breath ghosting the side of her face. “Listen to this,” he says, voice low and barely audible. “This was me, seven years ago. At the Academy.”

She doesn’t say anything, taking in the song lyrics. “Oh, _Fitz_ ,” she sighs, smiling softly and looking at him with a mixture of sadness and affection and longing. It feels silly to miss him, given that he’s right in front of her and has just vowed to stay there for the rest of their lives, but she does. She misses him and all the touches and adventures and petty little fights they could have shared during the years they avoided each other, and she’s suddenly struck with the overwhelming need to kiss all those missed years away. So she does. She presses up on her toes and slants her lips against his, moving them softly, gently, slowly at first, because they have forever now, and she’ll be damned if she’s not going to spend it kissing her husband breathless.

He kisses her back and draws her closer, then starts quietly singing along to the words he’s known by heart for so long.

_“The last excuse that I’ll claim_

_I was a boy who loved a woman like a little girl…”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EEEEEEEE so there it is. This fic is officially over. Sorry for the very late update but, you know, _life_. But again, thank you to everyone who read this fic. It was painful writing Trip now, but we hope you like it!
> 
> That last song is _A Drop in the Ocean_ by Ron Pope which is one of our favorite Fitzsimmons songs of all time and has been very instrumental in the process of writing this fic.
> 
> Alsoooo haha if you liked this, you should probably check out our [second joint fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2717270), which will hopefully be updated soon now that this one's done. 
> 
> -Jess


End file.
